1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to data aggregation, and more particularly, to a sensor network configuration, a data aggregation method, and a clustering method, capable of efficiently tracking multiple targets.
2. Description of the Related Art
A wireless sensor network obtains useful information by collecting data regarding physical phenomena or regarding certain objects which are sensed by using sensors which are randomly arranged, through wireless multi-hop communication.
In general, sensors in a sensor network are randomly arranged in a target area and sensing data is packetized and wirelessly transmitted to a sink node that is a kind of collection node. In most cases, sensor nodes are located at dangerous or isolated places which people cannot easily access and thus cannot be infinitely supplied with energy. Accordingly, energy exhaustion can be a serious problem and much research is being conducted into solving this energy exhaustion problem.
As an application technology in the wireless sensor network, a target tracking technology has the purpose of monitoring and tracking a target such as an animal, a soldier, a vehicle, poison gas, etc., by sensing locations and behaviors of the target. However, due to various characteristics such as mobility and variations in size or volume of the target, a network layer and a media access control (MAC) layer for a general sensor network cannot be easily used because a protocol for a conventional sensor network cannot effectively control excessive data created by a moving target, or control an appropriate sleep schedule.